New Post

Just updated my gardening blog, Gardens and Empty Spaces located in my blog links here.

Evergreen. It’s been so long that this book was in my shelf. It was published in 1978, first book of Belva Plain. I wonder why I ignored reading it for so long. It is my first book of the author, a wonderful saga of an American-Jew family. A richly written and finely detailed story about the family’s struggle in American soil. This is the second time I am giving ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to a novel. Have you read it?

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Something Orange

Glitches again?

I don’t know what happened earlier today. For some reasons, I could not publish my post and when I opened another window and tried publishing it, only a third of it was published so I erased the whole thing because I could not even edit it.  Sometimes, it is just so frustrating when you’ve done something you need lots of patience in the process to finish.

Orange is not exactly  a favorite color but since time immemorial, I have loved things with the color orange. When I was done with my chemotherapy years ago, I blogged  about this color (twice) and one of my friends honored me by wearing orange polo shirt to work.  He sent me a picture with a small note attached to it.

Accordingly, “orange combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation. It is the color of fall and harvest”.

What inspired me to blog about it today? I saw these lovely orange blooms of my Cassandra plants while I was pruning and weeding early this morning and I took shot of one cluster of flowers. A vibrant and fiery orange bloom.

Sometimes I wish I could grow one color of blooms in my garden. I specially love white. It’s a good thing I have some of them but I miss my Gardenia bush. I don’t know if it is a coincidence again (something happened last week that made me smile and I asked my friend on FB if it was a coincidence. Wilma, you know about this, right?).  A friend, a mother of one of Nissa’s best friends sent me a picture of a lovely white flower and she thought I could identify it but  it was the first time that I saw it. She said that they grow  plants with scented flowers in the garden because her Mom likes  them.  Gosh, how did she know I was also thinking  of my Gardenia? All I have now by way of scents and smell are my Kamuning plant and the flowers of our two calamansi trees.  She told that she would plant some cuttings of their Gardenia and will give me one.  Wow! Dreaming of those heady scents again.

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Ah, Perfect

I found this set of lovely mini clay stove designed the traditional way (it’s only about three or four  inches long), a mini pot with cover, frying pan and a clay dish in one of our cabinet drawers. I think it is actually a child’s toy given by my sister-in-law years and years ago.

They are just perfect for temporary home to my air plant meantime that the air plant holders I ordered haven’t arrived yet. Two more air plants will be delivered tomorrow. I am beginning to love this. Not so much maintenance as long as you’ll mist them every day or dip them in water for 10 minutes every week, dry and put them back to their holders.

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Those Blooms

I  visited the garden yesterday and early this morning. Took some photos of the flowers thriving there at the moment. Those tiny white blooms are a joy to behold along with the purple and pink flowers.

I am posting some here.

I love the heady and intoxicating scent of this Kamuning plant. Winner!

My dwarf Pandakaki, compared to the Kamuning blooms, they have no scent all.

 

My green Shamrock. I have the purple ones too.

Don’t you just love staying in the garden for a while and admiring those blooms. I do.

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Now I Know Its Name

I just finished  trimming the carabao grass early this morning. I’m happy my plants are well. Just updated my garden blog.

I posted some pics at my FB site and one of my friends who loves gardening too identified a plant  that I could not remember its name.

So this is called Scarlet Bush or Don Manuel. It is an easy to maintain plant. Just planted a sapling over a year ago. And it blooms non-stop.

I love this photo. Touched by the sun. That little orange Bougainvillea flower in front of our grotto was lighted by the rising sun.  I am propagating this, cut two stems a week ago and they are thriving well in two pots.

My Adenium bore seeds again and I planted them in small pots until they are old enough to be transferred.

Gardening is such a joy, don’t you think?

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How To Recognize Male and Female Plant Seed

For gardeners out there, have you tried this? I have this old post which I wrote in May 11, 2009 and posted it at my blog Gardens and Empty Spaces. Back then “like” was not yet introduced by WordPress I think but you can comment on the post. This has earned a lot of comments.  Someone commented just yesterday. I am reposting it here.

In our trip to Zambales  a few days ago, I learned some interesting facts about growing things in one’s backyard, very common of which is the papaya plant. Papaya is a soft-wooded perennial plant that has an average lifespan of 5 years and would grow about 4 meters high. The flowering stage is from five to eight months after planting and harvesting comes around five to six months after that.

My sister-in-law is a certified farmer, she underwent a complete 6-months seminar given by the Dept. of Agriculture.  She shared with us what she learned and gave us some seeds of different vegetables which are quite easy to grow, given a small space ,even just in pots.

I was not even aware that you would be able to know whether that papaya tree in your own backyard will bear fruit or not. Most of us just wait for papaya to produce flowers before we will be able to detect whether it is a male or a female.  Papaya flowers are just like jasmine blossoms. The flowers of female papayas are close to the stems while that of the male ones produce long flowers. But we really don’t have to wait for six months before we’ll be able to know if they are worth cultivating or not.  That’s a waste of time and space, according to my sister-in-law. We know for a fact that only female papayas produce those sweet and delicious fruits. One sure way of knowing is this, papaya male plants have one straight root while those of the females are branched-out, producing two or more roots, they’re the only ones that you have to transfer and plant.  Interesting!

Tomatoes are capable of self-pollination so they grow fruits on their own. Same goes true with squash. We have planted some squash  and tomatoes in our small backyard and  they’re growing  by leaps and bounds everyday.  We also planted pechay (Pak Choi) in small pots. Eggplant seedlings are sprouting like crazy. I can’t wait, I am quite excited waiting for everything to grow.

I tried planting chayote two days ago at the back garden. We have a permanent trellis there where it could climb on. It is also known as mirliton squash,  an edible plant belonging to the gourd family Cucurbitaceae.  When cooked, chayote is usually handled like summer squash; it is generally lightly cooked to retain the crispy consistency. Let us see how it grows in the next few days.

Our back garden and that’s Noki looking at some of our cats.

Planted some sweet potato vines a couple of months ago. We use the young leaves (found at the tip of each branch) to mix with our sinigang.

 

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Pretty In Pink (Survivors Of The Storm)

Took a few photos this morning while the sun is up. They are the same plants but the flowers have survived the storm.

 
Our grotto which we had constructed after my treatment ten years ago. We used to have Koi fish here.

I was surprised by this lovely Adenium, the flowers are no longer split.

 

A cluster of pink Vinca. Sturdy blooms.

 

A single-petaled Zinnia.

I harvested Calamansi before the typhoon. The two trees shed off some of the ripe fruits during the storm. I need to transfer my Papaya seedling soon.

Have a lovely Wednesday all.

 

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Blog Update

I just posted more photos of my small garden early this morning. You can find them all here.

While I was browsing Memories at Facebook, I saw two more shots of Nissa taken eight years ago. Nostalgic…remembering those moments. These are not official shots though.

According to Facebook, this is my most-liked photo of 2011.

 

My caption at Facebook says: I just love this, the two people so dear to me captured in a frame together. Nissa in a seemingly dream-like walk towards the altar and Lovell at a distance, a loving older son who’ll have his moment when he’ll be ordained as a deacon soon.

Back then, Lovell was still a seminarian. He has just celebrated his 7th Presbyteral Ordination a week ago.

Time flies….making memories!

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Garden Update

I just posted some photos at my gardening blog. You can find them here.  Please try to visit the site if you have time. Thanks a million.

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When Rain Lilies Bloom

Quite a surprise but it is nothing new. When the rain comes, my rain lilies are happy and they produce such lovely tiny  flowers that make the garden so nice  to look at.

rain lilies….

I have them as ground covers in one area of the garden.

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